There's something about a bonfire that makes people suddenly very honest about food. Nobody stands around a fire pit pretending they want “a little salad.” Bonfire food needs heft. Warmth. Cheese pulls that could qualify as infrastructure. Last Friday night, Bull Hill Boat Club, aka Tommy Wilson with a membership roster, hosted a bonfire for the neighborhood. Since I was feeding actual neighbors and not just anonymous internet people who politely “like” things and move on, I wanted to make...

There’s a certain kind of Southern poetry in the way Steel Magnolias turned a recipe into a rhythm. When Dolly Parton rattled off “cuppa, cuppa, cuppa,” she was talking about a cake so simple it barely felt like baking at all. Just a cup of fruit cocktail, a cup of sugar, and a cup of self-rising flour, stirred together and sent on its way. No fuss, no second-guessing, just trust the proportions and let it happen. This feels like its savory descendant… with a little more muscle behind it....

These started, as many good kitchen ideas do, with restraint. Or at least the idea of it. Like most women I know, I am perpetually dieting and perpetually looking for something a little decadent as a reward for all that perpetual dieting. I love Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, but if you look at the label, a standard cup has about 12–15 ingredients, many of which you’d rather not think too hard about. I wanted something that still hit that chocolate-and-peanut-butter note, but without all the...